Roots of Rebellion

Roots of Rebellion: Workers' Politics and Organizations in St. Petersburg and Moscow, 1900–1914 by Victoria E. Bonnell is a landmark study of the forces that shaped the Russian labor movement in the years leading up to the First World War and the revolutions of the early twentieth century. Drawing on rich archival sources and comparative perspectives, Bonnell examines how workers in the two major industrial centers of the Russian Empire forged political identities, experimented with organizational forms, and entered into volatile relationships with employers, political parties, and the autocratic state.

The book traces the emergence of workers’ associations from artisanal guilds and mutual aid societies to trade unions, factory committees, and cooperatives. It situates these organizations within the broader struggles of 1905, the fraught attempts to institutionalize unions under the restrictive 1906 law, and the repressive years that followed. Special attention is paid to the factors that distinguished Russian workers from their Western European counterparts, including the simultaneous pursuit of individual and collective rights and the boldness with which Russian workers demanded control over factory life. By reconstructing the dynamics of class, craft, and revolutionary consciousness, Bonnell explains why Russian labor organizations ultimately became vehicles for radical change rather than reformist integration. **Roots of Rebellion** illuminates the social foundations of Russia’s revolutionary upheavals and offers a compelling analysis of how workers’ organizations shaped—and were shaped by—the contradictions of a society in transition. It is essential reading for scholars of labor history, social movements, and modern Russia.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.